float until I learn how to swim

[wingwalker]

Who: Xas & Wolfgang; Xas & Benji
What: Friends! Tentacles!
Where: Various.
When: The first week of Shadri.
Notes: Not an open post solely because I am too lazy for a summary thing. But if you, too, would like your character to be touched harassed by an angel, drop me a line and we will make it happen.
Warnings: Pending.

Comments

Benji — the streets in Brock Marsh

[wingwalker]

When he notices Benji in the street beneath him, Xas seriously considers throwing something at her - just to get her attention. He doesn't really want to get down. But he does want to talk to her, and he doesn't have anything he could throw without injuring someone, so after a moment of fussy hesitation, he shoves the book he was reading into his recently-acquired backpack and pushes himself over the edge of the roof. It's only a two-story drop, but there's a moment when it feels like the air might thicken beneath him and keep him off the ground.

It's not the most graceful landing: the backpack almost unbalances him, and he brushes into a mildly startled woman while trying to right himself. "Sorry," he says - not sorry at all, especially since he's hardly the most dangerous thing that could fall out of the sky here, but it's what people say - and weaves ahead through the light crowd to catch up with Benji.

He doesn't have terribly far to go, and he doesn't try to be sneaky about falling into step beside her, windswept and pleased with himself. "Hello," he says. "Are you in a hurry?" He does have some manners.

[cestrumnocturnum]

Largely oblivious to any danger of things being thrown at her, no matter their intention, Benji moves with the pace of someone without anywhere to be with urgency. In truth, she likes this part of Baedal, with the graffiti, the young students and older academics, the general sense of valued education and community. In truth, it gives her a jealous sense of wist; she would like to be smart at something, and know theories, and construct essays. She is also twenty-seven, and not particularly wealthy, but on the plus side, rather used to dreaming.

She is in suede and denim and cotton, wardrobe as muted and ordinary as ever. A brown leather messenger bag bumps against her hip, and she is more or less a million miles away by the time Xas suddenly appears at her side, windswept and interesting. Benji starts, dignity not depicted here, and lets out a huff of a laugh.

"Hello," she replies, slowing without stopping. "Not really. Returning some books. Where did you come from?"

[wingwalker]

"On a roof," Xas says, with a flippant gesture. "I'd have invited you up, but I don't like to shout." He's starting to like this city - or at least pieces of it, and Benji is one of those pieces. Back home he probably would have moved on to a new city without ever noticing how interesting she was. He pulls the straps on his backpack to tighten it against his back, feathers compressing, and then puts his hands into his pockets and peers at her, with his few extra degrees of inhuman peripheral vision handling the path ahead. "Were they good books?"

[cestrumnocturnum]

"Maybe next time. I love rooftop scenes," Benji says with a brighter smile, arms folding around her as they move. "They were. Baedal authors, local folklore. It's hard to tell if maybe they just made them up so that Baedal would have any or not. Or if it matters." She bites her lip against rambling at what is basically just a conversation filling query, jolting a shrug. "I'm not very good at libraries."

[wingwalker]

"No?" Xas says. He's not sure how someone might be good or bad at libraries, exactly, but he smiles. "Not much time for them?" That wouldn't be surprising, given what he's seen of Benji's world.

"Libraries remind me of home," he adds, stepping around a sprig of something green and purple that's growing up through the sidewalk. "My brother had a bargain with God, to receive the eleventh copy of everything. We had books everywhere. But I haven't tried - did you have to give them an address?" He'd only just acquired his first library card, before he came to Baedal, and now he's back to not living anywhere. Or to living everywhere, he'd prefer to think.

[cestrumnocturnum]

"The borrowing," she says, mildly, although it's not an answer that negates Xas's guess. Just, you know, also. "They don't remind me of home, and I think I like keeping things." She certainly never lets go of the dreams she collects, stored into some preternatural vault of memory.

She nods, once. "Apparently. I guess so they can send around lone sharks to come collect if you don't return anything." She's joking, but also unsure of what does happen if you're late with them. (A fee, spoiler alert.) "Why the eleventh? Or is that a stupid question?"

[wingwalker]

"Oh," Xas says. He almost says he doesn't understand that, but then he thinks of his friends, who he didn't want to give up to time or to God, and he shuts his mouth and bites his lip instead. "I've been buying books," he says after a moment, "but I don't know what to do with them when I finish them. You can have them if you want. No promises as to quality."

The next part makes him wrinkle his nose, amused but also disappointed. If they need an address, he won't be borrowing from the library himself anytime soon. Then he shakes his head: it isn't a stupid question. "It wasn't for any specific reason. I suppose he thought anything people bothered to copy ten times must be something worth reading." A quick grin. "This was before you - " Humans, he means. " - came up with printing presses, of course."

[cestrumnocturnum]

"The rules should be adjusted. Eleven thousandth."

The offer of books has its appeal. Wolfgang, anyway, is nerdier than her; they could have a library! But-- "I couldn't take your books! You should keep them. Or sell them, I suppose. But if you need a permanent address," because the assumption that Xas might not have one is easy for her to make, as having one at all is a new novelty, "you could just write down mine." Either Benji really isn't good at libraries, or she trusts Xas to be.

Both, mainly.

[wingwalker]

It takes Xas a few moments of raised eyebrows to recover - not from surprise at the specific offer, because he's already learned how kind people can be, so much the reminder that this is his life now, walking alongside people and having needs they can fill. It was always the other way around, before.

"Okay. Thank you," he says once he's resettled, without pretending to have to think about it or to be to proud, then smiles. "But if you give me your address, you won't be able to stop me from leaving books at your door."

[cestrumnocturnum]

That gets a quick grin, undercut with a shyer shrug. A brief break in their walking ensues, Benji a bit awkward in navigating the pockets of her jacket and shifting aside her bag to do so to recover her CiD, before continuing. "I think that sounds like a win for me," she points out, eyes on screen as she, a little ponderously, types out the address of the Badside house before she can forget.

Ping. Or whatever sound or indication Xas's CiD makes, should he gave it on him, that a message is received.

[wingwalker]

Xas slips his backpack strap off one shoulder so he can get to his CiD without stopping, reads the address a few times, and puts it away again. His memory isn't perfect, but it is very good - it has to be, to keep up with his thousands of years. "Thank you," he says again, and then, "Tell me about something," with an entitlement that's only half teasing. After a moment he is generous enough to add a prompt. "How's work?"